94 Lift Off Exploring the Universe

CHAPTER 1 What's Out There? ZHEE STARED THROUGH THE WINDOW AT THE SPACEPORT RISING UP OUT OF THE ORANGE RAIN-GAS CLOUDS BELOW. SHE HAD NEVER SEEN SUCH NOISE AND FILTH.... In five minutes the ship she was traveling on would touch down in the middle of Shangha-port, one of the busiest spaceports still operating on Old Terra. A funny feeling, this homecoming that wasn't. Zhee knew that she had been born on Old Terra, Earth, one of the last of her work-group, before their section was sent up to Moonblock 9. Not that they'd stayed long on the moon. Zhee was still a baby when her group had moved to Mars after the 65 discovery of uranium on the red planet. Since then, Zhee had spent most of her 94 years working the rich mines on Mars's unwelcoming surface, going on vacation to the pleasure-ships in orbit above.

第一章外面有什么？ 哲透过窗户凝视着从下面橙色雨气云中升起的航天发射场。 她从来没有见过这样的噪音和污秽.... 再过五分钟，她乘坐的飞船将在上海港中心着陆，上海港是老地球上仍在运行的最繁忙的太空港之一。 一种有趣的感觉，这种回家的感觉。 哲知道她出生在老Terra，地球，她的工作小组的最后一个，在他们的部分被送到月球块9之前。 并不是说他们在月球上待了很久。 65年，在火星上发现铀后，她的团队搬到了火星，当时她还是个婴儿。 从那以后，她94年的大部分时间都在火星不受欢迎的表面上开采丰富的矿藏，去上面轨道上的游乐船上度假。

The long-ago litelltory of green Old Terra remained strong in most people's minds, though, and when news had come through of special return permits for a new ecology project that was under way in Sahara, the desert continent, Zhee had jumped at the chance. She'd worked in Mars's terrible conditions for 70 years now, so she imagined she could cope with a bit of Old Terra desert, no matter what people said. If the project went well, they would take the new technology back to Mars and create a second, more fertile Earth. Looking at the orange storm below, Zhee had to admit that Earth was not what she had imagined... We have no way of knowing whether the future of space exploration will be anything like Zhee's experience, or where present space exploration may lead us, but experiments with living in and exploring space have been going on for over 50 years.

然而，在大多数人的脑海中，很久以前绿色的老地球的故事仍然很强烈，当一个新的生态项目正在撒哈拉沙漠大陆上进行的特别返回许可的消息传来时，哲抓住了这个机会。 她已经在火星的恶劣环境中工作了70年，所以她认为她可以应付一点老特拉沙漠，不管人们怎么说。 如果项目进展顺利，他们将把这项新技术带回火星，创造出第二个更肥沃的地球。 看着下面的橙色风暴，哲不得不承认，地球并不是她想象的那样…… 我们无法知道未来的太空探索是否会像哲的经历一样，也无法知道现在的太空探索会把我们带向何方，但在太空生活和探索太空的实验已经进行了50多年。

The beginnings of space exploration are tied to the Cold War, when political connpetition between the Soviet Union and the United States moved up into space. Many early achievements were Russian, such as the first rocket to orbit the Earth (1957), the first astronaut (Yuri Gagarin, 1961), and the first woman in space (Valentina Tereshkova, 1963). The USA responded with its Apollo program, which eventually sent Neil Armstrong to become the first man on the moon, in 1969. By the 1970s, however, cooperation was beginning to replace competition, as political relations improved. This led to projects such as the 1998 launch of the International Space Station, to this date the longest- inhabited space station. Manned spaceflights are still limited to the exosphere, the highest level of the Earth's atmosphere. No human has ever gone further than our moon, and manned flights to more distant destinations, such as the planet Mars, are still not possible.

太空探索的开始与冷战有关，当时苏联和美国之间的政治竞争进入了太空。 许多早期的成就都是俄罗斯的，比如第一枚进入地球轨道的火箭（1957年），第一位宇航员（尤里·加加林，1961年），第一位进入太空的女性（瓦伦蒂娜·捷列什科娃，1963年）。 作为回应，美国推出了阿波罗计划，最终在1969年将尼尔·阿姆斯特朗送上月球，成为第一个登月的人。 然而，到了20世纪70年代，随着政治关系的改善，合作开始取代竞争。 这导致了诸如1998年发射国际空间站这样的项目，这是迄今为止居住时间最长的空间站。 载人航天飞行仍然局限于外逸层，即地球大气层的最高层。 人类从未到过比月球更远的地方，载人飞行到更遥远的目的地，如火星，仍然是不可能的。

However, the use of unmanned space probes has a very successful history. These missions are mostly fact-finding missions, but they are also used to test space-flight technology for later use in manned flights. They can be either orbiters, which take photos from space, or landers, which take information from the planet's surface. Much of what we now know about our neighboring planets, for example the existence of ice on Mars, has come from successful probe explorations. Rovers are unmanned vehicles that are used to explore planetary surfaces. They have the advantage of being mobile, which means they can travel around and send back information about many areas of a planet. Several countries have successfully landed rovers on Mars. Presently the USA has a rover, Curiosity, exploring the planet. The information these missions send back may one day allow manned missions to Mars.

然而，无人空间探测器的使用有着非常成功的历史。 这些任务大多是事实调查任务，但它们也用于测试空间飞行技术，以便以后在载人飞行中使用。 它们可以是轨道飞行器，从太空中拍摄照片，也可以是着陆器，从行星表面获取信息。 我们现在对邻近行星的大部分了解，例如火星上存在冰，都来自于成功的探测器探索。 漫游者是用来探索行星表面的无人驾驶车辆。 它们的优点是可以移动，这意味着它们可以四处旅行，并发回有关行星许多地区的信息。 几个国家已经成功地在火星上着陆了探测器。 目前，美国有一辆名为“好奇号”的探测车在探索火星。 这些任务发回的信息可能有一天会让载人火星任务成为可能。

CHAPTER 2 At Home in Space FOR HUMANS TO CONTINUE TO EXPLORE OUR GALAXY, THE MILKY WAY, WE WILL NEED TO BE ABLE TO LIVE IN SPACE FOR LONG PERIODS OF TIME. Living long-term in a low-gravity or micro-gravity environment like space can have harmful effects on the human body. It can make movement difficult, weaken muscles and bone, and cause changes in our immune system, vision, and taste. Although scientists have learned how to solve these problems through exercise, diet, and medicines, astronauts who spend long periods of time in micro-gravity conditions still find they are very weak when they return to Earth's higher gravity. So far, the record for the longest time spent outside of Earth's atmosphere is held by the Russian astronaut Valeri Polyakov, who stayed on the space station Mir for about 14 months to test effects on the human body. Returning to Earth, Polyakov managed to walk from his spaceship to a chair, to the amazement of everyone there. That same day he is rumored to have said, "We can fly to Mars."

人类要继续探索我们的星系——银河系，就需要能够在太空中长时间生活。 长期生活在像太空这样的低重力或微重力环境中会对人体产生有害影响。 它会使运动变得困难，肌肉和骨骼变弱，并导致我们的免疫系统、视力和味觉发生变化。 尽管科学家们已经学会了如何通过锻炼、饮食和药物来解决这些问题，但长时间在微重力条件下生活的宇航员回到地球的高重力环境时，仍然会发现自己非常虚弱。 到目前为止，在地球大气层外停留时间最长的记录是由俄罗斯宇航员瓦列里·波利亚科夫保持的，他在和平号空间站停留了大约14个月，以测试对人体的影响。 回到地球后，波利亚科夫成功地从飞船上走到椅子上，让在场的每个人都感到惊讶。 就在同一天，有传言说他说：“我们可以飞往火星。”

Polyakov's experiences showed that astronauts could spend long periods of time in space without suffering long-term problems, although there are still questions about whether humans could live for many years in this kind of environment. Living in space provides other challenges. Space is almost a vacuum, with neither the pressure nor oxygen to support the human body. The low pressure causes swelling and also a drop in blood temperature. Humans exposed to a vacuum would lose consciousness almost immediately, and exposure of more than 90 seconds is deadly. However, the effects are not as dramatic as some Hollywood movies would have us believe, and experiments on animals show strong recovery from exposure of less than 90 seconds.

波利亚科夫的经历表明，宇航员可以在太空中度过很长一段时间而不会遭受长期的问题，尽管人类能否在这种环境中生活多年仍然存在疑问。 在太空生活还带来了其他挑战。 太空几乎是真空，既没有压力也没有氧气来支撑人体。 血压过低会导致肿胀和血液温度下降。 人类暴露在真空中几乎会立即失去意识，暴露超过90秒是致命的。 然而，效果并不像一些好莱坞电影让我们相信的那样戏剧性，在动物身上的实验表明，暴露在不到90秒的时间里，恢复能力很强。